Hey, Kids Look… Ads!
Yes, that’s a pretty snarky comment, but Nintendo’s Miiverse has included a fairly surprising change to its web-based site. A more drastic redesign on the site took place during the summer, the most recent one states that for the first time ever there will be ads placed across some areas of the platform.
Why has sudden the change? Well, the Miiverse and online Nintendo world have always been free, which is great, but perhaps a little extra revenue wouldn’t hurt. Maybe it’s also because of the bigger bump in Wii U popularity in the last 6 months with games like Smash Bros., Splatoon, and Super Mario Maker kicking major butt in sales, so why not reach those players with some ads as well?
In the statement above, it’s clear the ads will only be placed in the web-based Miiverse and not on the 3DS or Wii U versions. It might not be a big deal to most users, after all we do see ads for endless amounts of ridiculous products on countless other sites. The integration of how the Wii U and 3DS Miiverse works is usually pretty smooth, so some users will not even notice the change if they stick to those platforms.
I can see the business approach to it, but the only dangerous thing about it, is they’re “Interest-based Ads.” This means they track through things like cookies from your browser, placing ads that are more “interesting” to the site’s visitor. So for kids of a certain age, for example, this can be tricky or misleading to them, especially if the computer doesn’t have any ads blockers or trackers to disable these features.
It remains to be seen what impact, if any, this would really have on the Miiverse web-based world. What do you think, is it an issue at all? Are you surprised at all by the move? Should I really be that concerned with ads on a website?
